1. PROFESSOR JAN OLSSON – Brief Curriculum Vitae including List of Publications
Summary
Professor Jan Olsson, born in 1952, is Professor of Cinema Studies and a former Head of Department at Stockholm
University. Professor Olsson has published widely on multiple aspects of film and media studies. He is the founding
editor of John Libbey’s book series Stockholm Studies in Cinema and the founding editor of the scholarly journal
Aura. Film Studies Journal. He is the recipient of multiple research grants, for example an Institutional Grant from
STINT (The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education; 2001-2004
together with the University of Southern California) and a project on early cinema including four scholars from
Stockholm and Ann Arbor (The Swedish Research Council (VR), 2002-2004). His latest larger research grants (VR)
ran from 2010-13, “From Business Commodities to Revered Cultural Heritage: Global Media, Vernacular Strategies,
and Cultural Negotiations. Current research interests include early cinema, archival studies, television studies,
celebrity studies, and the global reach of American media.
Current Position
Professor of Cinema Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden (1993- present)
Academic Posts
Visiting Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (1991 and 2002); University of Southern California,
1997, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2005; Utrecht University (1998); Northwestern University (2006)
(1986-1992) Associate Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Lund University, Sweden
(1980-1986) Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Lund University, Sweden
Education
(1979) Ph. D. (Comparative Literature, Lund University)
(1974) B.A. (Honors), Lund University
Publications (selected)
2015.1 Hitchcock à la Carte, Duke University Press (publication date March 20, 2015)
2014.4 “Stiller at first: A footnote,” Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, Vol. 4, No. 1(2014), 5-13
2014.3 “Filmaffärer: sicksackande anteckningar kring några Frank Heller-adaptationer,” in Göran Wessberg (ed.),
Frank Heller och filmen (Lund: Pelotard Press, 2014), 41-58
2014.2 “Marie Louise Gagner,” Women Film Pioneer Project, hosted on the web by Columbia University
2014.1 “National Soul/Cosmopolitan Skin: Swedish Cinema at a Crossroads,” in Jennifer Bean et al (eds.), Silent Cinema:
The Politics of Space (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2014), eds. (Indiana UP, 2014), 245-269
2013.1 “Screen Bodies and Busybodies: Corporeal Constellations in the Era of Anonymity,” Film History, Vol. 25,
No. 1-2 (2013): 188-204
2012.3, “World War II and the Scandinavian Cinema: An Overview,” (with Bjørn Sørenssen, Hannu Salmi, and
Edvin Vestergaard Kau), Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, Vol. 2, No. 3 (2012): 201-212
2012.2 “Modernity Stops at Nothing: The American Chase Film and the Specter of Lynching, in André Gaudreault,
Nicolas Dulac, Santiago Hidalgo (eds.), A Companion to a Early Cinema (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012),
257-276
(2012.1) “Asta’s ink: The Stockholm letters,” Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2012): 5-11
(2011.2) ”Klostret i Sendomir,” (Pordenone: Associazone Culturale ”Le Giornate del Cinema Muto,” 2011): 131-
133
(2011.1) “Alfred Hitchcock, théoricien de la television,” in Gilles Delavaud/Denis Maréchal (eds.), Télévision: le
moment experimental (Rennes: Éditions Apogée, 2011), 546–558
(2010.6) ”Italian Marionettes Meets Cinematic Modernity,” in Kingsley Bolton/Jan Olsson (eds.), Media, Popular
Culture, and the American Century (Stockholm: National Library and John Libbey, London, 2010), 35–61
2010.5) Jan Olsson and Kingsley Bolton, “Mediated America: Americana as Hollywoodiana,” in Kingsley
Bolton/Jan Olsson (eds.), Media, Popular Culture, and the American Century (Stockholm: National Library and John
Libbey, London, 2010), 7–33
(2010.4) Kingsley Bolton/Jan Olsson (eds.), Media, Popular Culture, and the American Century (Stockholm:
National Library and John Libbey, London, 2010)
(2010.3) “Rediscoveries and Restorations: Karusellen,” (Pordenone: Associazone Culturale ”Le Giornate del Cinema
Muto,” 2010): 114-117
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2. (2010.2) “Negotiating Peripheral Feature Markets: Malmö–Copenhagen–Berlin/Kristianstad–Stockholm–Paris,” in
François Amy de la Bretèque/Michel adé/Jordi Pons I Busquet/Angel Quintana (eds.), Domitor: 2008: Les Cinémas
périphériques dans la période des peremiers temps/Peripheral Early Cinema (Perpignan: Presses Universitaires de
Perpignan, 2010), 131–142
(2010.1) “Nils Krok’s Social Pathos and Paul Garbagni’s Style: Ingeborg Holm as Object Lesson,” Film History, Vol.
22, No.1 (2010), 73-94
(2009.3) “The Canon Revisited: Gunnar Hedes saga,” (Pordenone: Associazone Culturale ”Le Giornate del Cinema
Muto,” 2009): 98-100
(2009.2) Video essay for the New York-based internet-site alsolikelife.com ”The Saga of Gosta Berling (1924,
Mauritz Stiller) featuring commentary by Jan Olsson.” Also available on Youtube.
(2009.1) ”Kino på usikker grunn – Tilfellet Arthur S Hyman/Film Exhibition on Shaky Ground: The Case of Arthur
S. Hyman,” in Sara Brinch and Anne Gjelsvik (eds.), Veier tilbake. Filmhistoriske perspektiver (Kristiansand:
Norwegian Academic Press, 2009), 182-201
(2008.7) Los Angeles Before Hollywood: Journalism and American Film Culture, 1905-1915 (Stockholm: National
Library, 2009; distribution Wallflower Press, London)
(2008.6) “Terror à la Fox: Tid, rum och teknologi,” in Solveig Julich, Patrik Lundell, Pelle Snickars (eds.) Mediernas
kulturhistoria (Stockholm: SLBA, 2008), 223-245
(2008.5) “Lek,” in Anu Koivunen (ed.), Film och andra rörliga bilder. En introduktion (Stockholm: Raster Förlag,
2008), 88-105, 277-79
(2008.4) “Postmodern High Noon: 24 and the Shifting Landscape of Television,” in Nezih Erdogan/Miyase
Christensen (eds.), Shifting Landscapes: Media and Film in European Context (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2008), 262-286
(2008.3) “ ‘Dear Miss Gagner!’ – A Star and Her Methods,” in Tytti Soila (ed.), Stellar Encounters: Stardom in
Popular European Cinema (London: John Libbey, 2009), 219-231
(2008.2) “Hjalmar och Stina i tecknet av Dollar,” (Örebro: Hjalmar Bergman Samfundet, 2008), 28-32
(2008.1) “Microbes, Animals, and Humans: THE ESCAPE and the Politics of Undesirable Breeding,” in Paolo
Cherchi Usai (ed.), The D.W. Griffith Project Volume 12 (London: BFI Publishing, 2008), 69-82
(2007) “Hitchcock à la Carte: Menus, Marketing, and the Macabre,” in Will Schmenner/Corinne Granof (eds.),
Casting A Shadow: Creating the Alfred Hitchcock Film, (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2007), 62-77, 81-
83
(2006) “ ‘A Remarkably Versatile Dane’: Authorship, Style, and Trickality in Benjamin Christensen’s Blind Justice,”
in North-West Passage (Rome: Carocci editore), Vol. 3 (2006), 9-24
(2005.2) “Trading Places: Griffith, Patten and Agricultural Modernity,” Film History, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2005, 39-65
(2005.1) “Två Människor/Two People,” in Tytti Soila (ed.) The Cinema of Scandinavia (London: Wallflower Press,
2005), 79-88
(2004.6) ”Sound Aspirations: The Two Dimensions of Synchronicity,” in Didier Huvelle/ Dominique Nasta (eds.),
Le son en perspective: nouvelles recherches/New Perspectives in Sound Study (Bruxelles, P.I. E,-Peter Lang, 2004),
99-114
(2004.5) ”Pressing Inroads: Metaspectators and the Nickelodeon Culture,” in John Fullerton (ed.), Screen Culture:
History and Textuality (Eastleigh: John Libbey Publishing, 2004), 113-135
(2004.4) “Quel film non esiste,” in Per Dreyer: Incarnazione del Cinema, (Milan: Il Castoro, 2004), 126-137
(2004.3) “Calling the Shots: Communications, Transportation and Motion Picture Technologies,” in André
Gaudreault, Pierre Véronneau and Catherine Russell (eds.), Le cinématographe, nouvelle technologie du 20e siècle /
The Cinema, A New Technology for the 20th Century (Lausanne: Editions Payot, 2004), 273-281
(2004.2) Allegories of Communication: Intermedial Concerns from Cinema to the Digital (eds. John Fullerton/Jan
Olsson), London and Rome: John Libbey Publishing - CIC
(2004.1) Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition (eds. Lynn Spigel/Jan Olsson), Durham and London:
Duke University Press
(2003) “Double Shooting: Fictions of Making Westerns,” in Tanja Sihvonen & Pasi Väliaho (eds.), Experiencing the
Media: Assemblages and Cross-overs/Mediaa kokemassa: koosteita ja, ylityksiä (University of Turku, Media
Studies Series A, No. 53, 2003), 73-90
(2001) “Hollywood’s First Spectators,” Aztlán. Chicano Studies Journal, Vol XXVI, 1 (Spring 2001), 181-195
(2000.2) ”Eine Woche kommerziellen Fernsehens. Die 'Sandrews tevevecka' vor der Einführung des öffentlich-
rechtlichen Fernsehens in Schweden,”Montage/AV.Zeitschrift für Theorie & Geschichte audiovisueller
Kommunikation (Themenheft Skandinavien), vol 9, nr 1, 2000, 125-146
(2000.1) “Griffith’s First Films from Los Angeles,” in Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project, Vol. 4: Films
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3. Produced in 1910 (London: BFI Publishing, 2000), 19-41
(1999.2) ”In and out of Sync: Swedish Sound Films 1903-1914,” Film History, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1999, 449-455
(1999.1) Nordic Explorations: Film Before 1930 (eds. John Fullerton/Jan Olsson), London: John Libbey
(1992) I museernas sällskap. Konstarter och deras relationer (Co-edited with Hans Lund and Bernt Olsson),
Höganäs: Wiken, 1992) [In the Company of Muses. The Interrelations between the Arts]
(1990) I offentlighetens ljus (ed. Jan Olsson), Stehag/Stockholm: Symposion Bokförlag [In the Public Sphere]
(1988) Sensationer från en bakgård. Frans Lundberg som biografägare och filmproducent i Malmö och Köpenhamn
(Stockholm/Lund: Symposion Bokförlag, 1988) [Sensations from a Backyard. Frans Lundberg as Film Producer and
Cinema Owner in Malmoe and Copenhagen]
(1986) Från filmljud till ljudfilm. Svenska experiment med Odödlig teater, Sjungande bilder och Edisons Kinetophon
1903-1914 (Stockholm: Proprius förlag, 1986) [From Film Sound to Sound Film. Swedish Experiments with
Immortal Theatre, Singing Pictures and Edison’s Kinethophone, 1903–1914
(1983) The Searchers: En filmanalys (co-authored with Sven Åke Heed), Malmö: Liber förlag [The Searchers. An
Analysis]
(1981) Filmteori. Filmanalys, Jan Olsson (ed.), (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 1981) [Film Theory. Film Analysis]
(1979) Svensk spelfilm under andra världskriget (Lund: Liber förlag. Diss., 1979) [Swedish Feature Films during
Second World War]
(1976) Regissörens roller. Samtal med Alf Sjöberg (Co-edited with Gunnar Lundin), (Staffanstorp: Cavefors förlag,
1976) [The Director’s Roles. Interviews with director Alf Sjöberg]
Awards and Nominations
(2006) Allegories of Communication: Intermedial Concerns from Cinema to the Digital was nominated as book of
the month by the Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies at the University of San Francisco
(2002) Finalist and special commendation for the Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Award.
Awarded for Nordic Explorations: Film Before 1930
(1998) Belle van Zuylen Honorary Professor at the University of Utrecht
(1986) The Robin Hood Medal for outstanding research in film history. Awarded for From Film Sound to Sound Film
Recent Committee Work/Reader
Member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ committee for Distinguished Career Award (2014-16);
University of Southern California (tenure track 2014); Columbia University (hiring 2013 and 2014); University of St.
Andrews (hiring 2013); UCLA (hiring 2010); Northwestern University (tenure track 2009); University of Iowa
(hiring 2009). Reader for Routledge, Wiley-Blackwell; University of California Press; John Libbey Publishing; Film
History, Popular Communication; Celebrity Studies; Reinvention.
Faculty Opponent for Doctoral Dissertations
Bergen (Halse, 2014); Lund (Gustafsson, 2008); Copenhagen (Nielsen, 2006); Oslo (Solum, 2002); Copenhagen
(Tyberg, 1997); East Anglia (Fullerton, 1992); Trondheim (Myrstad,1988); Stockholm; (Qvist, 1986).
Recent Talks as Invited Speaker
University of Gothenburg 2015; Nanyang University, Singapore 2014; Scandinavian Studies Interest Group, Seattle
2014; Urbana-Champaign 2013; University of Gothenburg 2013; Stockholm University 2013 (Television 2.0); Lund
University 2013; Stockholm University 2012 (Stiller’s Best); Colorado Springs, 2011 (Pikes Peak Annual
Symposium); City University, Hong Kong 2011, 2010, 2009; Northwestern University 2009.
Recent Conference Papers
“Screen Dreams and Western Fantasies: Merton as Archetype,” (American Culture Association, Albuquerque 2014)
“Feeding Gossip: Alfred Hitchcock’s Marketing Model,” (JMComm, Phuket 2013)
“Nameless Meets Clueless: Everyday Space in Transition,” (On Location, UC Berkeley 2013)
“Hitchcock: Celebrity in Motion,” (Celebrity Studies Conference, Melbourne 2012)
“The Chicago Crusade in 1907,” (American Studies Association, San Juan 2012)
“Mediated Celebrity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” (City University, Hong Kong 2012) Co-organizer
“Digital Methodologies for Screen Histories (SCMS, Boston 2012)
No paper. Co-organizer. “Mediated Celebrity: The Sports Version,” (Stockholm University, 2012)
No paper. Co-organizer. (Medium to Medium, Stockholm (KB), 2011)
“Hitchcock’s Family Album,” (Popular Culture Association, San Antonio 2011)
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4. “Film Exhibition: The Single-Projector Model,” (Impact Conference, Montreal 2011)
“Still(s) Moving: Alfred Hitchcock’s Photographic Archive,” (Rethinking Media Archivism, Stockholm (KB), 2010)
Co-organizer.
“Stiller Interrupted,” (Domitor, Toronto 2010)
“Modernity Stops at Nothing,” (SCMS, Los Angeles 2010)
“From Homely to Comely: The Reinvention of the Cosmopolitan Heroine,” (Women Pioneer, Bologna 2010)
“From Vicious Gangster to Humble Detective: The Ethnic Casting of Warner Oland,” (Rethinking American
Studies: The Gangster Version, Stockholm (KB) 2009) Co-organizer.
“Alfred Hitchcock as Television Theorist, (INA/Paris 8, Paris 2009)
“Love Letters and Xenophobia: A Serial Queen at Hearst’s New York Evening Journal,” (SCMS, Tokyo 2009)
Essays in Press:
“Cadrer les appels muets : la téléphonie en termes cinématographiques,” in Alain Bouillat/Laurent Guido (eds.),
Loin des yeux... le cinema: Imaginaries visuels des technologies de telecommunication (Paris: Êditions L’Âge
d’Homme), 2015 (translation of essay in 2004.2)
“Exhibition Practices in Transition: Spectators and Audiences in the Single-Projector Era,” in The Impact of
Technologies, André Gaudreault, ed., (Amsterdam UP, 2015)
“Pressing Matters: Media Crusades Before the Nickelodeon,” Film History (2015)
Contracted Essays
“Griffith Reformatted: From Biograph to Birth of a Nation,” in A Companion to D.W. Griffith, Charlie Keil, (ed.),
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2015)
Funded Network
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Professor Ramona Curry for a program funded by Inspire (Illinois-
Sweden Program for Educational and Research Exchange) Program title: “Re-Inscribing Transnational and Local
Cultural Discourses in American Cinema Historiography”
Most Recent Research Projects
“From ‘Business Pure and Simple’ to Cultural Heritage” (The Swedish Research Council, 2010-13)
Five previous projects financed by VR and its predecessor 1987-2004; Institutional Grant funded by STINT for
cooperation between Stockholm University and University of Southern California, 2001-2004. Scores of minor
grants.
Supervised Dissertations
Lund University
Lars Gustaf Andersson, Änglarnas barn – en studie av Pier Paolo Pasolinis filmer, 1992
Professor, Lund University
Erik Hedling, Lindsay Anderson och filmens estetik, 1992
Professor, Lund University
Göran Wernström, Medvetet/omedvetet och filmberättande. En studie i Akira Kurosawas film "Sju Samurajer", 1996
Åbo Akademi
John Sundholm, Populärt berättande och offentlighet—sujet, excess, den sociala detektiven och den privata familjen,
1999
Professor, Stockholm University
Stockholm University
Örjan Roth-Lindberg, Skuggan av ett leende. Om filmisk ironi och den ironiska berättelsen, 1995
Senior Lecturer, Stockholm University; retired
Margareta Rönnberg, TV-tittande som dialog. På väg mot en symbolisk-interaktionistisk TV-teori, 1996
Senior Lecturer, Högskolan i Gävle
Trond Lundemo, Bildets oppløsning. Filmens bevegelse i historisk og teoretisk perspektiv, 1996
Senior Lecturer, Stockholm University
Moira Sullivan, An Anagram of the Ideas of Filmmaker Maya Deren. Creative Work in Motion Pictures, 1997
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5. Part-time Lecturer; involved in various film festivals
Bo Florin, Den nationella stilen. Studier i den svenska filmens guldålder, 1997
Senior Lecturer, Stockholm University.
Bengt Bengtsson, Ungdom i fara. Ungdomsproblemet i svensk spelfilm 1942-62, 1998 (Prize for best dissertation in
the humanities at Stockholm University)
Senior Lecturer, Högskolan i Gävle
Mats Björkin, Amerikanism, bolsjevism och korta kjolar. Filmen och dess publik i Sverige under 1920-talet, 1998
Senior Lecturer, Gothenburg University
John Alexander, Screen Play, 1999
Freelance scholar, consultant to film schools and television corporations.
Per Vesterlund, Den glömde mannen. Erik ”Hampe” Faustman, 2000
Senior Lecturer, Högskolan i Gävle
Per Persson (now Rohdin), Understanding Cinema. Constructivism and Spectator Psychology, 2000
Network Consultant, Valtech AB
Jan Holmberg, Förtätade bilder. Filmens närbilder i historisk och teoretisk belysning, 2000
Head, The Ingmar Bergman Archives, Swedish Film Institute
Pelle Snickars, Svensk film och visuell masskultur 1900, 2001
Professor, Umeå University
Åke Walldius, Patterns of Recollection. The Documentary Meets Digital Media, 2001
Senior Lecturer at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
Bert Fridlund, No Room to Die. A Structuralist Study of the Content of Spaghetti Westerns, 2002
Researcher (SCB, Stockholm)
Ylva Habel, Modern Media, Modern Audiences. Mass Media and Social Engineering in the 1930s Swedish Welfare
State, 2002
Senior Lecturer, Södertörns högskola
Mats Rhodin, Vildsvinet i filmens trädgård : metaforbegreppet inom filmteorin, 2003
Researcher, the National Library of Sweden, Stockholm
Anna Sofia Rossholm, Reproducing Languages, Translating Bodies — Approaches to Speech, Translation and
Cultural Identity in Early European Sound Film, 2006
Senior Lecturer, Linnaeus University
Åsa Jernudd, Filmkultur och nöjesliv i Örbro 1897-1908, 2007
Senior Lecturer Örebro University
Joel Frykholm, Framing the Feature Film: Multi-Reel Film and American Film Culture in the 1910s, 2009 (Prize for
best dissertation in the humanities at Stockholm University)
Research Fellow, project financed by the Swedish Research Council
Anne Bachmann, Locating Silent Film Culture: Connections, Contentions, Configurations, 2013
Currently supervising four doctoral students in Stockholm: Kim Fahlstedt, Gert Jan Harkema, and Tove Thorslund
(all in Cinema Studies) and Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén (in Fashion Studies)
JAN OLSSON, 2015
5

6. Part-time Lecturer; involved in various film festivals
Bo Florin, Den nationella stilen. Studier i den svenska filmens guldålder, 1997
Senior Lecturer, Stockholm University.
Bengt Bengtsson, Ungdom i fara. Ungdomsproblemet i svensk spelfilm 1942-62, 1998 (Prize for best dissertation in
the humanities at Stockholm University)
Senior Lecturer, Högskolan i Gävle
Mats Björkin, Amerikanism, bolsjevism och korta kjolar. Filmen och dess publik i Sverige under 1920-talet, 1998
Senior Lecturer, Gothenburg University
John Alexander, Screen Play, 1999
Freelance scholar, consultant to film schools and television corporations.
Per Vesterlund, Den glömde mannen. Erik ”Hampe” Faustman, 2000
Senior Lecturer, Högskolan i Gävle
Per Persson (now Rohdin), Understanding Cinema. Constructivism and Spectator Psychology, 2000
Network Consultant, Valtech AB
Jan Holmberg, Förtätade bilder. Filmens närbilder i historisk och teoretisk belysning, 2000
Head, The Ingmar Bergman Archives, Swedish Film Institute
Pelle Snickars, Svensk film och visuell masskultur 1900, 2001
Professor, Umeå University
Åke Walldius, Patterns of Recollection. The Documentary Meets Digital Media, 2001
Senior Lecturer at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
Bert Fridlund, No Room to Die. A Structuralist Study of the Content of Spaghetti Westerns, 2002
Researcher (SCB, Stockholm)
Ylva Habel, Modern Media, Modern Audiences. Mass Media and Social Engineering in the 1930s Swedish Welfare
State, 2002
Senior Lecturer, Södertörns högskola
Mats Rhodin, Vildsvinet i filmens trädgård : metaforbegreppet inom filmteorin, 2003
Researcher, the National Library of Sweden, Stockholm
Anna Sofia Rossholm, Reproducing Languages, Translating Bodies — Approaches to Speech, Translation and
Cultural Identity in Early European Sound Film, 2006
Senior Lecturer, Linnaeus University
Åsa Jernudd, Filmkultur och nöjesliv i Örbro 1897-1908, 2007
Senior Lecturer Örebro University
Joel Frykholm, Framing the Feature Film: Multi-Reel Film and American Film Culture in the 1910s, 2009 (Prize for
best dissertation in the humanities at Stockholm University)
Research Fellow, project financed by the Swedish Research Council
Anne Bachmann, Locating Silent Film Culture: Connections, Contentions, Configurations, 2013
Currently supervising four doctoral students in Stockholm: Kim Fahlstedt, Gert Jan Harkema, and Tove Thorslund
(all in Cinema Studies) and Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén (in Fashion Studies)
JAN OLSSON, 2015
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